To think people (especially children) don’t need to be eating constantly?

[constantlyeating]

NC because I am going to get flamed for this.

I’m wondering whether this is why we have an obesity crisis. We are all constantly snacking!

For children it seems to have become: breakfast, morning break snack, school lunch, snack on the way back from school, dinner and then another something before bed— if not more often.

Does anyone have just 3 meals a day anymore? What ever happened to food only being eaten at the table?

[quote SafeMove]@itsgettingwierd - it will be the norethisterone. Do you have endo/adenomyosis or fibroids? I have all 3 and even though I fast 18:6, don't eat puddings and walk up mountains i am stuck at 10.5 stone. If you are oestrogen dominant weight gain/loss is a constant battle, especially if you are taking hormone therapy. I went from 9.5 stone to 11 stone on the merina and then norethisterone. In all the endo support groups I am on, women report the same.[/quote]
Yes! I have endo and possibly adenomyosis. Have hysteroscopy in October!

People help saying how much weight I look like I've lost but I'm not! It seems to fall just have moved from my hips and face and stop on my belly 🙈

I get annoyed that pay to go to soft play for a few hours and the families we go with want to spend half of it sitting down for a snacking session! Lunch was only an hour ago! And of course my kid is like a moth to a flame and i have to then go and buy something lest we be scroungers 🙄

Totally get this - I make a really conscious effort not to snack between meals and then also try to make good choices (most of the time anyway - I do allow myself to live a little occasionally!). If I relax that attitude it only takes a few days before I notice my waistband getting snug and generally I start to feel a bit sluggish and rubbish about myself! I really don’t get how some people can seemingly snack all the time (on junk) and yet maintain their healthy-looking figures - my body isn’t a temple or anything but I do have to, and do, work super-hard and exercise some serious self-control to keep it in check!

Tbf I think I’m probs just envious and bitter!

[quote SafeMove]@Anotherbrokenairer no, it's fine. So between 2013-19 I was a lone parent of 3dc with no maintenance coming in due to abusive exH and we were homeless twice due to crappy rentals. Me and the kids had to sleep on mattresses on my parents floor and then a friend's floor in one bedroom for a couple of months each time. I worked PT because DD was a toddler so was on a low income, then got made redundant in 2015, so decided to study for an MSc and had x2 min wage, zero hours contract jobs that only gave me between 16-20 hours per week work but were so variable.

This was the worst time, we had to use food banks and my MH was on the floor due to a court case. Then I got a FT job in 2017 but it had to support the four of us (me and 3DC), and tax credits reduced and I was paying off my masters, so wasn't much better off tbh. In late 2018 I met DP, went to a two income household in 2019, got a big promotion in 2020, DP got a promotion beginning of 2021 so our income is now 70k and we have just bought a house together. Even yesterday the DC were talking about how in one of the crappy, tiny rental houses we never had food in the fridge. Food scarcity is a thing in this country. I went from a middle class income marriage, big house etc, to leaving with a broken jaw, about 6 years of being very poor, to returning to the middle class income, decent house etc. It can happen so easily and life feels very precarious tbh. I don't think I'll ever rest on my laurels. I just feel terrible I dragged the DC through it [/quote]
Goodness...it sounds awful so glad you're back on your feet! Well done.
As for the kids, sometimes life is hard for them and we do our best. I bet your kids are so proud of you against the odds you're giving them a better life and they'll grow up seeing what a fab mum you are x

I've been overweight eating twice a day and underweight eating six times a day. There are so many other factors than the number of times you eat.

I am one of those parents who brings a snack to the school gate, though, and always have been. Sometimes that's an ice cream, other times an apple or a small sandwich, occasionally a takeaway meal or McDonald's. I don't believe in food restrictions of any kind, instead I'm trying to teach my DC to have a good relationship with food and to honour their own hunger signals and bodies.

We just have three meals a day (all at the table, always), no snacking unless we put a film on and have some sweets/popcorn. I don't think people need to snack, many people like to but it's not particularly necessary. Each to their own though, it doesn't bother me as it has no affect on my life what other people choose to eat and when. I agree with your point though, people may be overeating and unhealthy because of it which is a worry.

Thankyou @Anotherbrokenairer what a lovely thing to say

In the liver and muscles there is 1-2000 calories of carbs readily available and most people have approaching 100 000 calories in fat, children less but in proportion. The body is amazing how it stores and releases energy when we need it. So we can manage well without snacking but if weight isn't an issue there's no reason not to have a snack either. I think some people worry that they'll run out of energy more easily than the reality.

Completely get this and had this exact laugh, debate with a good, lovely mum friend yesterday.

She's mum of four, exhausted. 2,4,6,9.

She does
Snack on wake while dressing, sorting four kids.
Breakfast.
Snack.
Lunch
Snack
Dinner
Supper

Discussion came about because we met at park at ten and she brought cheese scones, crisps, melon and rich teas. I said to Dd, eh steady, lunch soon. She then said food was a nightmare in her house, two refusing meals.....and we laughed. Mine then didn't eat much lunch, hungry at 3...

But seriously, mine are on a farm, I'm to lazy to cope with the hygiene implications of producing food every five minutes in the lambing shed. Or up the side of a mountain.

I'm not bothered, we take the gentle piss out each other, she messaged earlier saying she had made a resolution to drop a snack, so she ate it...but her children are also fit, healthy, active. Just very different way of doing things.

@SafeMove
Ahh...🤗. It doesn't hurt to be reminded how far we've come and how well we're doing

I think part of the problem is that the meaning of the word "snack" has become confused with the word "treat"

Snack is something to eat IF you're hungry. To tide you over until a meal. Doesn't have to be something you really fancy because you love the taste of it. So an apple, handful of nuts, it's more of a functional food to get you from A to B.

There is nothing wrong with eating a biscuit or a bit of chocolate because you fancy one but it isn't a "snack" it's a "treat".

IMO a break-time snack at school is fine - I always had one even in the very olden days - usually a Marmite sandwich. Most of us had something similar, at least at secondary school age.

We never had snack foods in the house to be eaten whenever though - IMO that’s the difference. My DM didn’t even buy biscuits as a regular thing.

I know it is a very unfashionable view that snacks are unnecessary but I agree. As always all children are different and there will definitely be some for who little snacks through the day will be best way but for others this continual snacking just leads to eating too much of the wrong food. The number of people who complain that children won't eat the meals they give them but 15 mins before a meal give them a snack and 15 minutes after throwing away an uneaten meal give them another snack. At my children's school a large proportion seem to bring a snack to give to child for the walk home and my children moan that I don't, but they have just had lunch a short while before and if they are really hungry they can have an apple in 20 minutes once home.

To me, life would be so miserable if I restricted what I ate and didn't snack at all

Bearing in mind a smack doesn't have to be a bag of crisps. It could be fruit, biscuits, hummus, salad, yoghurt, anything you want

I can't imagine not eating when I'm hungry.

My 3 year old ds has 2 small and healthy snacks e.g fresh fruit and I can't see anything wrong with that. However I don't agree with children snacking throughout the day especially on organix biscuits and other sugary stuff.

One of the problems is that many snacks aimed at children are marketed as healthy but are anything but. Those fruit winder things, granola bars and flavoured yogurts are full of sugar but many parents don’t seem to realise this. I can’t believe that some of these marketing campaigns are legal tbh.

@BoPeeple couldn't agree more.